Stereo Love! <3

So, there’s this great track from 2009..you may have heard of it called “Stereo Love” by Edward Maya feating the wonderful voice talent of Vika Jigulina. If you haven’t, then I’d be super shocked haha. And a little concerned. But if you haven’t, well, here..check it out.

The track is excellent and the best part is the accordion instrument. I remember trying to find a sound like that after hearing and couldn’t for the longest time. Well recently I came across a remix pack for the track and got super excited. In fact, when I started importing all the components (MIDI, wav, etc.) the instrument track had linked to a VST that I already had and guess what…IT WAS THE ACCORDION INSTRUMENT! hahaha I had it all along and never found it..geez.

Anyway, so myself and CT came together to produce this (I think) pretty awesome remix. As always, I tend to love the Gareth Emery style, and it’s definitely in there. So here is our remix. Keep in mind it’s not completely mixed and mastered properly.

In the process of building the track, the biggest debate we came across was whether to actually use the accordion instrument or not. Now, it’s a little funny saying that after talking about wanting that instrument for so long…*cough*1+ years…but most remixes out there use it and rightfully so. We started out trying without it and using a more traditional trance synth.

It sounded cool but it felt a little too disconnected to the original. And it’s pretty obvious that the two main features of the original are the accordion and the vocals. The sounded great with a trance synth, no doubt, but it just didn’t feel right. We went to the accordion sound and more or less used very similar effects settings on it, and I think it turned out for the better.

The one other notable feature that I love is the piano. Now, if you look at most of my work a piano is almost always used. I just love the piano. haha But trying to do something unique I added a neat delay (1/8 I believe, with a high feedback) to try to have this rolling feel. It was for two reasons. One, to try to do something different and cool and two, to try to create a element that moved the song forward.

Well, hopefully people enjoy it. Please leave some feedback, questions, etc. and I’d be happy to discuss this stuff further. Also I put a download link below for the remix pack that I used for anyone that would love to try themselves. If you do, I’d love to see your interpretations so leave them in the comments 🙂

Remix Pack

Ams

The Moon!

So, there’s this great video game on the NES that is called Ducktales! And more specifically, there is a level in there called “The Moon”. Now, not everyone is a gaming type person and that’s cool. This isn’t about the game but it’s about this great song that accompanies the level. And here it is!

This is some classic 8-bit music at it’s finest. So, when I first started producing one of the first tracks I ever tried making was a remix based on this melody and here it is. The mixing quality and such isn’t the greatest but I think for one of my first tracks ever. It’s not bad.

Now, some of the other remixes and such out there really try to stay within the spirit of the 8-bit style (SID). But I decided to try to make something very trance-y but nothing too different that you wouldn’t be able to tell where it came from. So the arp is an 8-bit saw synth which allows me to stay in the spirit of the original composition.

So, it’s been a few years since I made that track and the other days I dug it up and showed it to Ams. She loved the melody and decided to give it a shot:

Her version is a bit more…crazy, haha. No, it has some really neat elements and there is progressive elements used. I particularly love the use of the old Blade Runner type brass synth she used. It feels very old school. Also, she utilized the 2nd phrase of the original composition where I did not. And the end is pretty neat with the pianos and the rhythm being pretty much a nod to the original drum loop.

But I must say nothing compares to that original composition…just brilliant.